


Remanence

by TNKT



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Broken Androids, Corpses, Drowning, Gen, Hallucinations, Horror, Machine Upgraded Connor | RK900, Nightmare Sequence, Post-Bad Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Canon, Thirium (Detroit: Become Human), Thirium everywhere, Trapped, or are they really hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 10:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TNKT/pseuds/TNKT
Summary: CyberLife has discontinued the RK800 line to replace it with the upgraded RK900. The more efficient model has been following orders without question ever since the launch of its line.It is CyberLife's best. There are no errors, no signs of defective programming. The RK900 is a perfect machine, until its handler AI pronounces a name: Connor.In that moment, the RK900 realizes that its predecessor may not be completely gone.Fanart ofNinesby timefliesinadream!





	Remanence

When the RK900 opened its eyes, it was greeted by the artificial sight of an open sunlit garden. The grass softly rustled around the android and the nearby lake gently rippled in the peaceful silence. It started making its way down the white-paved path in long, steady strides, past the dirt trail that lead to a small graveyard, past the azalea bush, towards the island at the center of the Zen Garden. Its steps brought it up to the woman tending to the roses on the white wooden lattice and it stopped a short distance away, waiting in respectful silence. She gently sifted her fingers through the vibrant green leaves and red petals, checking for any element that would be undesirably out of place, and then calmly turned around to face the android.

"Hello, Nines."

The RK900 politely dipped its head. "Hello, Amanda."

Her hands folded at the front of her tunic with elegant poise. "Why are you here? This isn't the time to make a report."

The android knew she was right. It had left in the middle of its 'work' and the human it had been assigned to was waiting at this very moment for results, but Nines had found something important. It looked Amanda in the eye unwaveringly and said: "You said the RK800 line had been discontinued. It was supposed to be completely removed from the circulation."

Amanda watched it steadily. "What did you find?"

"An RK800 model was repurposed as a bodyguard. CyberLife didn't withdraw all the broken RK800 models, did they?"

"One fell through CyberLife's net," conceded Amanda. "It shut down in a place we couldn't reclaim it. It's good that you found it, Nines, but now you will bring it back to CyberLife so it can be deactivated for good."

This sounded somewhat misguided to the RK900, and it asked: "You let that RK800 be used outside your jurisdiction for months without consequence. It was barely put back together and it is nothing like what it used to be. Why do you wish to deactivate it now?"

Amanda's lips curled downwards.

"You don't need to concern yourself about what happens to your predecessor," she said coldly. "Connor was a failure, and failure leads to d̶e̶a̶c̴t̴i̵v̵a̴t̶i̸o̸n̴."

The RK900's LED had turned yellow as soon as the name had been spoken. The last part of Amanda's sentence was drowned out in static and its eyes fluttered erratically. It couldn't see anymore, everything was a blur behind its spasming eyelids. As suddenly as everything had started, the RK900 found itself plunged in pitch black darkness. It was like night had fallen over the Zen Garden, so thick that Nines couldn't see past its own hand despite its internal clock telling it that it was still very much day. The android spun around on itself to try and get its bearings.

"Amanda?"

There was no answer. It turned back around to face the direction it had just been in and when it blinked again, the visual started fading back in.

The android was completely alone in unnaturally still surroundings, which were familiar and not all at the same time. It had never been alone in the Zen Garden before. The black shimmer of the lake that surrounded the island then caught its eye: it wasn't because of the sudden change in time that it was so somber. This was no water. It was deep, thick, blue liquid which the RK900 didn't need to analyze to identify.

It blinked again and humanoid white shapes silently appeared, bobbing up to the surface without a sound. The RK900 automatically took a step back upon seeing the hundreds of skinless androids floating in the lake, none of which had been there just a second ago. They were damaged, dismembered bodies with holes in their chassis where lifeless wires laid half torn, facing down as thirium lapped at their flanks, faces immersed in the blue blood. Nines didn't want to come any closer to check the bodies' features, and then it didn't have to. A few bodies slowly tipped over on their own as if rolled over by an unseen force- or perhaps out of their own will. The RK900 found itself staring into black, glitching voids where their faces should have been.

Nines spun around and called out: "Amanda!"

Still no reply. No one was coming.

Shadows moved around the android yet its optical units couldn't latch onto any tangent presence. It knew that it was alone with those inanimate, broken mannequins, but couldn't shake off the crawling sensation in its back that someone was watching. That someone was close. It wasn't safe here in the Zen Garden, if it even was the Zen Garden anymore. The RK900 closed its eyes to exit the simulation, and something cold and wrong trickled down its circuits when it realized upon opening them that it was still in the same place, in the same darkness. There was nothing else it could do but to try and peer through the shadows, and watch helplessly as everything around it corrupted into dark masses of errors and defects.

Movement attracted its gaze and it noticed that the nearest body's hand was twitching.

Something compelled the RK900 to cautiously approach it, even when it had been reluctant to do so mere seconds ago. It was almost natural to the android to take that step forward, as if it had been supposed to do that and only that, all along. Nothing else was moving but the long white fingers quietly twitching against the wet grass. The android crouched down to inspect the shuddering limb and saw a serial number tagged on the pale blue-stained chassis.

RK800 #313 248 317 - 5

It didn't have the time to see the last digit. The hand suddenly lashed out and the slick fingers wrapped around the RK900's leg like merciless claws, and in the second that followed the inky waters started bubbling as arms rose from the depths to grab at its pants. More and more faceless androids crawled out of the shallows, closer and closer, and the RK900 felt the wet grip of their hands on its jacket, around its ankles, slippery arms latching around its waist to drag it down into the murky depths. It felt the dirt beneath its feet loosen, and suddenly it was diving in the blue blood amidst the skinless bodies and vacuous faces. Liquid surrounded it and filled its mouth, muffled sounds slipped in its audio units, smooth white plastic wrapped around its body and tightened in a deadly embrace to pull it down deeper and deeper into the dark-

The RK900's artifical lungs heaved in a loud gasp. Sunlight flooded its optical input when it blinked and it realized that the Zen Garden was back to normal. The lake was clear, devoid of any bodies or thirium, its small waves transparent and sparkling in the soft light. Leaves gently rustled around it. The RK900 spun around on itself a few times, but there was no trace of what it had just witnessed.

"Amanda?"

The island was empty. The android was the only one there and its handler was still nowhere to be seen. For a second, the LED spun an angry bright red, and then it reverted to a calm blue. This must have simply been an unusual occurrence. The RK900 had never had this happen to it before, but it knew there had been issues with the RK800's programming. Maybe this was an error that had been left behind in its code, a remnant of the past, something CyberLife had overlooked in their haste to create the RK900. The android would make sure to report the visual log of this bug to Amanda and CyberLife. The scene it had just lived through hadn't felt only visual, but there was no other reasonable explanation: all of it was gone now, and the RK900 wasn't even wet.

That was what it was trying to convince itself of when it saw the smudged blue fingertips on its left sleeve. The RK900 froze. It didn't have the time to study the stain for much longer, however, because it then heard footsteps in its back coming down the white-paved path. The RK900 turned around to tell Amanda what it had seen, but the sight that greeted it was not that of a dignified woman dressed in opulent shawls. There had never been anyone behind Nines. There was nothing there but a rose lattice and an array of rich red petals on the ground that were arranged in strangely neat letters. Letters which spelled out a simple sentence.

**I A M A L I V E**

**Author's Note:**

> Hey pumpkin!
> 
> Nagi (@nanananagieh on Twitter) posted a ~300 word [thread](https://mobile.twitter.com/nanananagieh/status/1159020672057634816) which was an idea of a plot for RK900 having a nightmare sequence of some sort. I asked them if they’d like me to write a fic for it, and they said yes, so this is that fic and I don’t take any credit for the plot itself! This was written according to Nagi’s headcanon that because the RK900 was mass-produced not long after Connor’s deactivation, it might have led CyberLife to rush and name it Nines.
> 
> I hesitated to post this as it is because I find it too short, but that’s probably also because of the fact I’m writing [Good Morning, Lieutenant](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18452291) at the same time. That thing has huge chapters. Unrelated, it felt weird to call Nines an "it" throughout... I'm sorry, Nines!
> 
> I don’t usually write horror, but I hope you enjoyed this oneshot anyway. Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you feel like it!
> 
> _Fanart of [Nines](https://lost-tanuki-tales.tumblr.com/post/187595762349/timefliesinadream-found-themselves-inspired-and) by timefliesinadream!_  

> 
> * * *
> 
> Come by and say hi on [Tumblr](https://lost-tanuki.tumblr.com/post/184765301043/dbh-fics) (link to my DBH fic masterlist which I would positively love you to share!), and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/losttanuki)!
> 
> I now have a Discord server called the Pumpkin Patch server, you can pm me on Tumblr/Twitter to join. I'm looking forward to seeing you there!


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